Milwaukee DSA

The riverwest co-op gives back to the community in ways that a traditional business could never.

If you're able, please donate to help keep this community treasure alive.

Save the Rivewest Co-op Grocery & Cafe, organized by Jill Capicchioni For over 22 years the Riverwest Co-op has been more than a grocery store and … Jill Capicchioni needs your support for Save the Rivewest Co-op Grocery & Cafe

On this day in 1864, Emil Seidel was born. Seidel was the first Socialist mayor of Milwaukee—or any major U.S. city—ushering in an era of Sewer Socialism in the early 20th century.

Born in Ashland, Pennsylvania, Seidel’s family moved to Wisconsin when he was a child, first to Prairie Du Chein and later to Madison. At age 19, he got his first taste at organizing when he established a local woodworkers’ trade union. Soon after, Seidel moved to Germany and became acquainted with Socialism. After returning to Wisconsin a few years later, he joined the Socialist Party of America.

Seidel first ran for office in 1904, winning an aldermanic seat in Milwaukee. He went on to become the city's first socialist mayor from 1910 to 1912.

As the first Socialist mayor of a major city, Seidel made transformative changes to Milwaukee. He municipalized utilities and established Milwaukee’s first municipal police and fire commissions, public works department, and parks system. This focus on taking public control of public utilities and services gave rise to the Sewer Socialism moniker for which this political era is widely known.

Seidel also won key victories for worker’s rights by raising the minimum wage for city-employed laborers from $1.75 to $2.50 per day as well as enacting an eight-hour workday. He also introduced the country’s first worker’s compensation program as well as education classes for adults and free medical exams for children.
Seidel was so successful in winning over working class voters that the Republican and Democratic Parties joined forces to defeat Seidel in the 1912 election.

Seidel stayed politically active, running as the vice presidential candidate on Eugene V. Deb’s 1912 Socialist presidential campaign. Their campaign won the biggest turnout for a Socialist Party presidential candidate in U.S. history at 6% of the vote.

For the next two decades, Seidel remained engaged in Milwaukee politics, serving as an alderman and running campaigns for mayor and the U.S. Senate.

He died in Milwaukee on June 24, 1947 at 82 years old.

Very few elected officials are willing to seriously question the police. Wisconsinites should consider themselves lucky to have someone in the assembly who is committed to fighting police overreach, even when it's not politically--or personally--convenient.

If you'd like to see more leaders like Representative Ryan Clancy in office, join DSA today.

Rep. Ryan Clancy Settles With City Following 2020 Curfew Arrest With trial already underway, Clancy secures the policy changes he long sought.

Join our Socialist Feminist Working Group for our first clothing swap! Bring in donations of lightly used clothing to swap with our community. Leftover clothing will be donated to local LGBT+ and women's shelters.

December 16 | 12-2PM
Zao MKE Church
2319 E Kenwood Blvd,
Milwaukee, WI 53211

RSVP at: https://actionnetwork.org/events/clothing-swap?clear_id=true

Young Democratic Socialists of America asks college students: Which labor campaign is right for YOU?🫵 Take our quiz now to find out ❤️🫶🫰
dsausa.us/laborquiz

On this day, December 8th, in 1911, the Milwaukee Leader was established. The newspaper served as the primary English language publication for the Milwaukee socialists, and it would play a crucial role in getting their pro-worker messaging to a wider audience. It was one of only three Socialist dailies in the nation.

Victor Berger, the newspaper’s founder, was clear in his intentions for the publication: promoting a transition from capitalism to socialism. In its very first issue, the Leader included articles explaining the negative impacts of capitalism on everyday people as well as Berger’s current efforts to pass a bill in Congress to nationalize certain monopolies. The newspaper's delivery trucks were emblazoned with the message, "Vote Socialist for your children's sake. Vote Socialist; save civilization. Vote Socialist; abolish poverty. When you think of your home, your family your job. Profits go to the owners - we want public ownership. This will reduce taxes. Read the Milwaukee Leader. Join The Socialist Party.”

The Leader printed articles delivering up-to-date news coverage (up to four editions per day at its peak) on national and international news as well as local coverage on topics like labor and police. While the paper found success, garnering a readership of over 48,000 at its height in 1929, funding remained a nagging issue from its inception. The Leader relied mainly on donations for financial support; eventually, the newspaper sold to three former employees of the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1940. They changed the name to the Milwaukee Evening Post, which folded two years later.

Today, Milwaukee DSA seeks to revive the pro-worker messaging that is desperately needed at a time where inequality is rapidly accelerating. If you'd like to follow our efforts to revive this publication, please follow the Milwaukee Leader on Twitter (X) and Instagram.

How do you change your union to make it actually work for rank-and-file members? It might look like getting together with coworkers to start a reform caucus to revitalize your union, to build power to win on issues that matter to members, and to organize around democratic practices like direct elections.

Learn how reformers in the UAW (Unite All Workers for Democracy - UAWD), IATSE, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (Caucus of Working Educators) took their first steps! Join Labor Notes at the upcoming webinar, “Caucus Development: Getting Started,” on Thursday, Dec. 7, from 8 p.m. ET to 9.30 p.m. Register for free: https://labornotes.org/events/2023/caucus-development-getting-started

[Photo by Jim West; Jimwestphoto.com]

Milwaukee News Roundup for Dec. 1, 2023:

Milwaukee News Roundup: Dec. 1, 2023 - The Milwaukee Leader Welcome to the Leader‘s news roundup, where we gather all the important stories that may have otherwise slipped unnoticed through Milwaukee’s media churn. The last

Kissinger meant that there must never be an example of a country in America’s sphere of influence delivering socialism through the ballot. “Henry saw Allende as being a far more serious threat than Castro,” Kissinger staffer Morris told Hersh. “Allende was a living example of democratic social reform in Latin America.” ..
Pinochet’s torture chambers were the maternity ward of neoliberalism, a baby delivered bloody and screaming by Henry Kissinger. This was the “just and liberal world order” Hillary Clinton considered Kissinger’s life work.

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies Henry Kissinger has died at age 100, his consulting firm said in a statement on Wednesday.

Make sure to reach out to Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union if you are having problems with your landlord!

While landlords have long been able to report tenants’ payments, few did so. But now, housing and consumer advocates say that they’ve seen more of them use the threat of hurting tenants’ credit scores since pandemic-era eviction moratoriums and stronger rent laws passed in 2019. “Landlords are looking for any sort of stick that they can use as a collection tool without having to go to housing court,” said Tashi Lhewa, a Legal Aid Society attorney. Now tenants who withhold rent for poor conditions may have little recourse.

At the link in our bio, explores how this tactic came to be.

Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Getty

🚨 Talking to Non-Socialists About Palestine: a Training 🚨
🗓️Monday, Dec. 4, 7pm CT

This two hour event will be split into two parts. The first about how to have tough conversations. The second will give context on this important topic.

RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/talking-to-non-socialists-about-palestine-training-2

On this day, November 30th, in 1934, workers at Boston Store in Milwaukee declared a strike.

1934 was a particularly successful year for strikes in the city, and the workers at Boston Store felt emboldened to organize. In September of that year, the now defunct Retail Clerks International Union (RCIU) had founded a chapter in Milwaukee which quickly grew to 600 members.

The union decided to focus their efforts on Boston Store, then the largest department store in Milwaukee. Employees there were earning $14 a week, which they called "starvation wages." RCIU demanded that the store raise wages to $25 a week for male clerks, $20 a week for women, and that their union receive official recognition from the company.

When management refused, the workers decided to call a strike on November 30th, right at the beginning of the busy holiday shopping season. The workers were joined by members of other unions as well as the League of Women Shoppers, a local group of middle class women that had formed to support the strike. At its peak, the picket reached 1500 participants. The strike gained national attention as the first large strike at a department store in the United States.

After police arrested five picketers, some protesters began to act violently. Some protesters placed stink bombs in the store and broke windows. One altercation involved two women, one of whom was a striker and the other a new hire meant to replace striking workers. The public defender assigned to the case refused to represent the latter because she was a "scab."

Boston Store management took advantage of this incidents by taking out full page ads in the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel. The Federated Trades commission responded by taking out their own ad in the Milwaukee Leader, the primary English language socialist newspaper in the city.

After the shopping season passed with sign of concessions from management, the strike fizzled out. In 1979, the Retail Clerks merged with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters to form the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).

This image shows the downtown Boston Store location in the 20th century. It once billed itself as "the Heart of Milwaukee."

The return of hostages and people detained without trial is a welcome development, but there is so much more work we need to do. Please join us tomorrow to contact our representatives to tell them we want them to support peaceful solutions rather than continuing to invest copious amounts of money in death and oppression.

On this day, November 29th, in 1967, students at UW-Milwaukee rallied in front of the union and marched downtown to protest the presence of recruiters for Dow Chemical on campus.

Dow Chemical supplied the US military with na**lm, a flammable gel used in fire bombs and flame throwers. Its widespread use against civilian populations was a key point of contention for anti-Vietnam protesters. One month earlier in Madison, students had made national headlines for a Dow Chemical protest that led to a violent altercation with police.

The Milwaukee march came after UW-Milwaukee had considered and rejected a proposal to bar Dow Chemical recruiters. Chancellor J. Martin Klotsche praised the march for its peaceful nature and appointed a special committee to investigate the possibility of banning Dow Chemical recruiters from campus.

In February of the next year, the committee released the "McLaughlin Report" which found that Dow Chemical and the CIA had a right to recruit on campus. They also stated that while students had a right to protest, the university should involve police if protests got out of hand.

The protests continued into the following years, and resulted in two students being arrested for trying to stop interviews.

In this picture, chancellor Klotsche addresses protesters in a hallway in March of 1968.

Join us and DSA International Committee Saturday 12/9 at 7PM CT for a report back on the Democratic Socialists of America delegation to Okinawa with ZENKO and hear from speakers in Okinawa about the struggles against military occupation and colonialism and the parallels to Palestine today.

RSVP: dsaic.org/okinawa-report

In just the last month, we’ve seen Missy Zombor
take on corruption within MPS, County Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez and County Supervisor Ryan Clancy get some huge policy wins into the county budget for prison harm reduction, and Darrin Madison and Representative Ryan Clancy roll out transformative legislation packages on tenant protections and conditions of confinement (and come under assault by moderate establishment for speaking up for Palestinian rights).

Our movement is already accomplishing incredible things. Let's keep up the momentum. With two more amazing candidates launching their campaigns on Friday, your socialist electeds and candidates need your support. For Giving Tuesday, please consider supporting the folks who support our community. You can donate to any (or all) of our candidates through this link: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mkesoc

Solidarity!

We can do it together! Support socialist electeds and candidates!

Is it time for a big, united strike by millions of union members against the billionaire class? What do you think?

Next Labor Solidarity Working Group Meeting TBA. For a list of our events and meetings, click here: milwaukee.dsawi.org/calendar go

Unions Should Start Planning for a Mass Strike on May Day 2028 Calls for a general strike usually skip over the hard work of organizing one. But UAW leader Shawn Fain is urging unions to align their contract expiration dates for May 1, 2028 — setting up the possibility of a mass May Day strike.

We don't need to accept inhumane conditions at the county jail or budgets that don't meet our needs. Sign up here to volunteer this weekend to help us elect bold, progressive leadership to the county board of supervisors that will stand up for the interests of the working class: https://bit.ly/47MTrHh

We were proud to stand with our coalition partners, Northside Rising, on Saturday against We Energies. Privately owned utilities benefit no one except the super rich, and it's high time the working class made a stand.

If you'd like to see local utilities that operate in the interest of people and not profits, then go to bit.ly/pplpowermke to sign our petition for a municipally owned utility.

Join DSA International Committee tonight at 7pm for our Cuba delegation organizers and participants for a national reportback🌹 🇨🇺

RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/cuba-delegation

Our coalition partner, North Side Rising, is hosting a demonstration against WE Energies on Friday.

Privately owned utilities benefit no one except the ultra rich. Can we count on you to stand with working class Milwaukeeans against powerful corporate interests?

Our coalition partner, North Side Rising, is holding a demonstration this Friday against WE Energies.

Privately controlled utilities benefits no one except the one percent. Can we count on you to stand in solidarity with working class Milwaukeeans against powerful corporate interests?

Next Labor Solidarity Working Group meeting: https://actionnetwork.org/events/labor-solidarity-working-group-meeting-26

Open to all members! We will be discussing current labor fights in Milwaukee and Wisconsin and sharing information from our own unions about current issues.

UAW's win helps non-unionized workers too as Toyota, Honda both hike pay As Honda hikes pay of some US workers by 11%, this shows how union wins can buoy pay for an entire sector – and even an entire country.

RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/general-membership-meeting-31

The monthly General Meeting of the Milwaukee chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is tomorrow at 10am. This is a great place to learn about the chapter, join us in making collective decisions, and get plugged in to our active campaigns and working groups.

The best tool we have to fight imperialism is a mass, resilient socialist organization.

DSA has put together a Solidarity Toolkit that you can continue to use to demand : tinyurl.com/DSAPSToolkit

🇵🇸

As of the the 2017 convention, DSA endorses and supports the liberation of the Palestinian people and opposes the settler colonialism, Imperialism, and apartheid state of Israel. As internationalists we support the struggles of the working class against forces like imperialism as a part of the larger struggle for the liberation of the working class

Keep in mind: when they mean Israel they are not talking about the people of Israel - they mean they support the settler-colonial apartheid project of Israel that serves the interests of American imperial hegemony and the capitalist class.

DSA International Committee

Wisconsin GOP official questioned over his no-bid contracts from Milwaukee Public Schools Some Milwaukee school board members are questioning whether a local nonprofit that has received nearly $1.3 million in no-bid district contracts over the past decade is delivering on its promises t…

For a list of our events and meetings, click here: milwaukee.dsawi.org/calendar

Snow Days Under Socialism What would winter look like in a world where human needs trumped private profits?

For a list of our events and meetings, click here: milwaukee.dsawi.org/calendar

DSA has put together a Solidarity Toolkit that you can continue to use to demand . Take action: tinyurl.com/DSAPSToolkit

Witchcraft, Gender, & Marxism | Philosophy Tube Double, Double, Toil and Trouble... Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/PhilosophyTube Subscribe! http://tinyurl.com/pr99a46 Paypal.me/PhilosophyTube Wanna get m...

The best tool we have to fight imperialism is a mass, resilient socialist organization.

DSA has put together a Solidarity Toolkit that you can continue to use to demand : tinyurl.com/DSAPSToolkit

🇵🇸

As of the the 2017 convention, DSA endorses and supports the liberation of the Palestinian people and opposes the settler colonialism, Imperialism, and apartheid state of Israel. As internationalists we support the struggles of the working class against forces like imperialism as a part of the larger struggle for the liberation of the working class

Keep in mind: when they mean Israel they are not talking about the people of Israel - they mean they support the settler-colonial apartheid project of Israel that serves the interests of American imperial hegemony and the capitalist class.

DSA International Committee

Take action: tinyurl.com/DSAPSToolkit

The best tool we have to fight imperialism is a mass, resilient socialist organization.

We have put together a Solidarity Toolkit that you can continue to use to demand

🇵🇸

As of the the 2017 convention, DSA endorses and supports the liberation of the Palestinian people and opposes the settler colonialism, Imperialism, and apartheid state of Israel. As internationalists we support the struggles of the working class against forces like imperialism as a part of the larger struggle for the liberation of the working class

Keep in mind: when they mean Israel they are not talking about the people of Israel - they mean they support the settler-colonial apartheid project of Israel that serves the interests of American imperial hegemony and the capitalist class.

From 2013

The best tool we have to fight imperialism is a mass, resilient socialist organization.

We have put together a Palestine Solidarity Toolkit that you can continue to use to demand : tinyurl.com/DSAPSToolkit

Israel admits Ethiopian women were given birth control shots ***

Make to support the Milwaukee Leader to support working class journalism and fight back against capitalist media! Next meeting is tonight at 6pm. RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/the-milwaukee-leader-meeting-8

On Western media and the erasure of Palestine The Palestinian struggle brings to the forefront the colonial relations that underpin today’s world, and that the West, and its media, work tirelessly to hide.

Take action: dsausa.org/no-money-for-massacres-phonebanks

The establishment won’t stand up for Palestinians and is turning a blind eye to genocide.

From the streets to the halls of power, we must stand up against the war machine and say: No Money For Massacres.

We can and must fight back, right inside the halls of power. That is why we call upon all comrades to call their congress members, and let them know we stand in solidarity in the fight for Palestinian survival and liberation.

The capitalist war machine has worked overtime manufacturing consent for ethnic cleansing. But the truth is, more Americans stand with Palestine than ever. Let’s make it undeniable, from the streets, all the way up through Congress.

An absolutely heartbreaking but encouraging podcast episode from Jewish Currents on Palestine. Make sure to join us Sunday at 11am at Red Arrow Park for the Stop the Genocide Against Gaza event co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace - Milwaukee, Party for Socialism and Liberation - Milwaukee, and more!

Unsettled After October 7th The Unsettled podcast speaks with scholar Tareq Baconi and Gazan activist Isam Hamad.

If you want more bold, progressive legislation like stronger tenant protections and less of...the other stuff, donate today to elect more DSA-endorsed candidates to office: http://actblue.com/donate/mkesoc

bit.ly/dissent-nyu

As of the the 2017 convention, DSA endorses and supports the liberation of the Palestinian people and opposes the settler colonialism, Imperialism, and apartheid state of Israel. As internationalists we support the struggles of the working class against forces like imperialism as a part of the larger struggle for the liberation of the working class

Keep in mind: when they mean Israel they are not talking about the people of Israel - they mean they support the settler-colonial apartheid project of Israel that serves the interests of American imperial hegemony and the capitalist class.

Join us tomorrow at 6pm for the next phone bank! RSVP: https://actionnetwork.org/events/power-to-the-people-phone-bank-20?clear_id=true

MTEA elected leaders passed a resolution at last Wednesday’s Representative Assembly to support the “Power to the People” campaign to replace We Energies. The campaign, launched by Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) calls for public ownership of public utilities, which aims to replace We Energies with a municipal or cooperative utility using Chapter 197 of the Wisconsin State Statutes.

The campaign has already collected over 5,500 signatures from all over the City. MTEA joins Our Wisconsin Revolution, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, North Side Rising, Greater Milwaukee Green Party, Milwaukee Solidarity, a revolutionary socialist organization, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation - Milwaukee in support of the campaign.

The three goals of the campaign are:

1. Win a Green New Deal for Milwaukee: Public ownership of public utilities will allow us to create sustainable, family-supporting jobs that promote a cleaner environment.

2. Implement collective decision-making: A utility run by the people—not corporations—will give people the power to decide how much we have to pay each month for heat and energy, expand renewable energy sources, and more.

3. Cut the profit motive from our monthly bills: With a public utility, the rates we pay will support reliable service, not shareholder profits.

The problems of corporate ownership of public utilities are starkly evident when it comes to the climate crisis. Milwaukee is already experiencing the climate crisis, with suffocating smoke from Canadian wildfires polluting our air this summer. To combat
the climate crisis, we need to remove the profit motive from our utilities.

More resources can be found at PowertothePeopleMKE.org.